5. The hygiene of methods-wholesome ways of guiding children. These five divisions in many school systems-city, county and state are being organized under one head. The term hygiene is as broad as the terms health and physical development, and broader than the term physical education as it has come to be known. The goddess Hygieia of the ancient Greeks was solicitous for the entire physical well-being of man. Some would substitute the term physical education for educational hygiene or school hygiene but they will probably not prevail. Some insist that the field is too vast to be directed by one man and that the amount of medical, gymnastic, recreational, psychological and sanitary knowledge and training such a director would require is too vast to be expected of any one person. But the same may be said of the superintendent of schools or the head of any one of our big business corporations. We have found organization from one center generally profitable and effective. If men with medical degrees and physical education diplomas are not available, or the present course in these various lines not satisfactory for one who is to be director or supervisor of hygiene in a school system, such courses will surely be provided and suitably trained men will inevitably be forthcoming. Others would call the whole department the department of health or of health supervision. But such a designation would frequently lead to confusion both as to the scope of the department and as to whether the general city health department or the school health department were meant. The "department of hygiene" and the "supervisor of hygiene" are perhaps the most desirable designations for the schools. We need not use the term school hygiene any more than we would use the term school drawing or school penmanship. These departments and these supervisors in public school systems have no need for such redundancy. We emphasize these distinctions in administration because they outline the scope, help to get the right start, and encourage sound development of this whole school movement for national health and vitality. The field is enticing and expanding. Recent discoveries in ventilation, for example, which destroy the old lack-of-oxygen and surplus-of-carbon-dioxide theory of bad ventilation on which our school houses and ventilating plants are constructed will greatly modify this phase of school architecture and sanitation in the direction of providing perceptible movement of the air, proper humidity, and proper temperature. But our space limits keep us from expanding the five phases of the work. A six-hundred-fifty page volume recently published little more than roughly sketches the outlines of the several fields.2 Educational Hygiene, Edited by L. W. Rapeer, Scribner's Sons, New York. PLAY AND RECREATION BY GEORGE E. JOHNSON, A.M., Assistant Professor of Education, Harvard University. It is less than a generation since educators began saying much about the educational value of recreation. Yet many schoolmasters of former years were sensible of its value. The able but eccentric Mr. Moody, the first principal of Dummer Academy (Mass.), so the history of that school tells us, used to regulate the school day by the tide, in order that the boys might have the best time for bathing. But with a few notable exceptions the teacher's interest in the past has been in the physical value rather than the educational value of recreation. Recuperation, not education, has been the conscious justification of school yards and recesses. INCREASED INTEREST IN PLAY AND RECREATION There have been several causes contributing to the increased interest of the last few years in recreation and play. As the first of these we may mention the rapid increase in the growth of cities, and the disappearance of the play opportunities of city children. Kindliness first stimulated the attempt to provide better play opportunities than the streets could afford. But in social matters, kindliness is generally the best policy, and it was soon recognized that better play opportunities decreased the number of accidents and lessened mischief. Students began to seek additional grounds for the belief that the play facilities of children should be improved. An opportunity for this came through the child-study movement. With a more intelligent interest in children and a better understanding of their nature and needs came the realization of the truly educational and social value of play. Psychology, taking direction. more and more from the study of the original tendencies and original nature of man, emphasized more and more the significance of the instinctive interests and play activities of children. Meantime, the relation of commercialized recreation to the social welfare of youth came to be more clearly recognized, and some of the more serious evils of misguided recreation, in various communities, were carefully studied. So also came the realization of the opportunities in recreation for the social mingling of the different racial groups, and the wearing down of prejudice and increase of mutual good will and understanding, so necessary for a truly national spirit in a democracy made up of mixed races like ours. AGENCIES ACTIVE IN PROMOTING PLAY AND RECREATION Hence it came about that philanthropists, educators, parents, citizens grew more and more disturbed at the old laissez-faire attitude of the school and the community in the matter of recreation and play. Philanthropic societies, such as social settlements, Young Men's Christian Associations, Young Women's Christian Associations, boys' club organizations, and others including churches and Sunday schools, increased their efforts to provide wholesome play and recreation. Park departments were stimulated to a more efficient appeal to the people to use the parks and to bring "breathing places" to the people. Groups of men and women, eager for immediate progress and impatient of the existing slow moving agencies, formed playground associations. Municipalities, awakened to the popular need and demand, created play and recreation commissions. Meantime the schools were attempting to appeal more and more to the play interests of children in their methods of teaching, and to meet more wisely the recreational needs of their pupils. It required little pressure, in some communities, to induce boards of education to appropriate money for supervision of play and recreation, and to open the school buildings in the evening for social and recreational uses of the community. TYPES OF PLAY AND RECREATION CENTERS ESTABLISHED Naturally the type of play and recreation center that these various organizations established took color from the character of the organization developing it. The social workers established boys' and girls' clubs, settlement houses with indoor gymnasiums, playrooms, club rooms, and the like; sometimes small outdoor playgrounds and settlement farms for summer vacation outings. The park board equipped portions of the large parks for play activities, converted small squares into playgrounds, and sometimes established so-called recreation parks, with children's playgrounds, swimming pools, athletic fields, and field houses. Recreation com missions most commonly established recreation parks, and small playgrounds, and concerned themselves somewhat in the oversight of commercialized recreation centers. Playground associations utilized school yards, vacant lots, small park areas, school buildings, and sometimes established recreation parks with buildings, through the financial aid of the municipality. School boards organized school playgrounds, supplied playrooms and gymnasiums, swimming pools and sometimes athletic fields. They established vacation schools in the summer, and evening social and recreation centers in the winter. The above, in a general way, suggests how the type of center varied according to the type of administration. Which type of administration has the greatest natural advantages is a mooted question which it is not the purpose of this article to discuss at any length. But it is the purpose of the article to suggest the great natural opportunity, even responsibility of the school, in the matter of play and recreation among children and adults; and it may appropriately be shown that, in the matter of administration, the school has great and unique advantages. ADMINISTRATION OF PLAY AND RECREATION Mr. Lee F. Hanmer, Director of Department of Recreation, Russell Sage Foundation, enumerates five planks of good adminis tration of play and recreation as follows: 1. Adequate funds 2. Competent leaders 3. Authority in proper hands in all lines of work 4. Complete control of property 5. Freedom from political control; To these we might add a sixth: 6. Proper coördination with other departments of the munici- THE SCHOOL AS AN AGENCY FOR ADMINISTRATION There is no other department of civic affairs which tax payers so willingly support as the public schools. In some states, the board of education has direct taxing power, a power seldom possessed by other agencies concerned in the conduct of play and recreation. Among school officials and educators are included the larger number of those who are conversant with the needs and nature of childhood and youth, the educational and social aspects of play and recreation, |